Trekking the Tarahumara
July 26th, 2007
THE TARAHUMARA, refusing to submit to the ordering of church bells and to working like dogs for the Spanish, and realizing the futility of armed confrontation with Spanish soldiers– began a gradual retreat, migrating westward into the rugged mountains and canyons of the Sierra Madre. From the Spanish missions they borrowed whatever would integrate into their ancient corn milpa culture and would facilitate its adaptation to the harsh winters and shallow rocky soils of the Sierra– the iron ax, the ox-drawn plow, goats and sheep, fruit trees, the weaving of wool blankets. And in their new, almost impenetrable isolation , content with the freedom to do as they pleased, and with their fiestas and corn beer, they continued their proud and fiercely independent lifestyle.Today the Tarahumara– a people who take enormous pride in traveling well on foot– still inhabit their maze of canyons, collectively known as the Copper Canyon, several of which are deeper than the Grand Canyon.
TARAHUMARA TREK operates in the region known as the Tarahumara Baja, out of a small Tarahumara village perched in pine-oak forest on the lip of one of these canyons. Base camp is a typical, one-room adobe house, from which numerous day hikes and overnight treks may be taken to other even more remote settlements in the uplands and along the canyon rim– as well as down into the tropical ecosystem of the canyon bottom, a world of thorn forest and saguaro cacti, in places spotted with plantings of mango, papaya, guayaba, and orange trees.
For more information visit http://tarahumara-trek.com/
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